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northward. In fact it was along this handy bridge that early Paleolithic man crossed into the northern Philippines.
We stopped at Lalutaya Island for the night. To the south just ten miles away lay El Nido, its high cliffs clearly visible in the evening sky. Lautay Village must have been having a local fete as loud music and karaoke blared into the humid night.
After a lazy, late star we motored the remaining miles to El Nido, coasting past Caverna, Cauayan and Cadlao islands. The smallest was little more than a rock with seas breaking and splashing high on its flank, the largest and imposing island of lofty peaks and a headland shorn off as abruptly as if a carpenter had taken a saw to it! As we round that extraordinary piece of geology El Nido opened before us, the town resembling a tumble of miniature doll houses at the foot of the Marble Cliffs.
As we sailed close to the bluffs we could see rickety bamboo ladders lashed to high fissures. For hundreds of years surefooted climbers have scaled these sheer walls to enter caves to rob the Swifts-babies of their nests made from their mother's saliva! The rewards for climbers are high at US$3,000 a kilo for nests that will make a Chinese gourmet soup.
Small restaurants dot the beachside. The streets of the town are excessively narrow. A standard Filipino jitney can barely maneuver. The two story houses are so close a person can reach across to touch the next one from his window. Every spare centimeter is crammed with brightly flowering plants potted in recycled car tire pots. Children tumble from their front doors to play in the streets, moving aside for each motorcycle taxi, car truck or bicycle. Passer-bys can look into living rooms. Groups watch television with the family from outside. There is the usual handful of Europeans that got off the boat and never got back on. One told me he had landed three years ago, eventually went home to Germany for two weeks and then returned. "There was nothing for me at home any more. Forty years was enough."
The local tourist office had in bottles and drawers a collection of endemic snakes, lizards and decomposing birds. We recognized the stork-billed kingfisher, the swifts and a few others.
27 March 04. We awoke this morning to gurgling and hissings as the calm seas played in and out of nearby caves. The previous day we had gone ashore to complete our emails, but the electricity was off. "It is always off in the morning. If it was on all day, few would be able to pay their electricity bills!" The young man at the email shop told us. Unwilling to delay even a day longer we head out to exquisite Bacuit Bay.
This is an area of the world few of us are even aware of. It is an area difficult for any but cruisers to fully appreciate. In blustery weather it is a difficult area. In calm weather it is wonderland. The NW facing cove at Tapiutan Island was quite sensational with deep clear waters and a second cove too choked with coral to get into. In the morning fishermen arrived to snare octopus from which we traded for a couple. There was no less than 12-fathoms in which to anchor.
Miniloc is heralded as one of the prettiest in this 20 mile deep bay, so after a detour into the narrow chan
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